Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts

The Well: A Story of Love, Death & Real Life in the Seminal Online Community Review

The Well: A Story of Love, Death and Real Life in the Seminal Online Community
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The Well: A Story of Love, Death & Real Life in the Seminal Online Community ReviewFirst, I should note that I'm a long-time Well member (albeit mostly as an observer, not an active participant) which may color my perceptions. Nevertheless, I tried to read this more-or-less objectively, as a book I might give to friends that would convey exactly why it is that I am a member.
Well, it passes that test easily: in its relatively brief length, "The Well" succinctly and sensitively chronicles the odd birth, growing pains, and interpersonal dynamics that make The Well the unique online community that it is.
I'm buying copies for my ex-girlfriend, who complained that I spent too much time at the computer, and for a friend who, years ago, acidly commented, "Why that's amazing, you've gone a whole thirty minutes without mentioning The Well!"
Maybe this book can explain the things I couldn't. Highly recomended for those who want to understand the possiblities of virtual communities.The Well: A Story of Love, Death & Real Life in the Seminal Online Community Overview

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The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) Review

The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry)
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The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) ReviewThe Googlization of Everything offers a crisp vision for what kind of information society we should be building. That one might not agree with it is a feature -- this is a book that doesn't state the obvious. Rather, it pushes us to rethink what we take for granted, noticing the medium in which we swim, instead of just moving right along.
The book is an impressive synthesis of the current thinking on and around Google -- much of it applicable to any contemporary dot-com with runaway success. One of Siva's objections to the "googlization" of the online knowledge space is that while institutions like libraries and universities typically plan to be around in a hundred years, companies like Google do not necessarily have, or plan for, such staying power. This is a nicely contestable sentiment -- that, as a corporate entity, Google is inherently shorter lived then, say, the University of Virginia, or at least its values are less consistent over time. It sets up a deeper question of what mix of institutions ought to contribute to the world and serve as gateways to our accumulated knowledge, and with what ethos (ethoi?).
In the last section, Siva proposes a Human Knowledge Project. The name is derived from the Human Genome Project. It is intended to be a "global information ecosystem," essentially a Google by and for the public sphere: "The Human Knowledge Project should [be] open, public, global, multilingual, and focused. It should be sensitive to the particular needs of communities of potential knowledge users around the world, yet it should be committed to building a global system that can erase the gaps in knowledge that current exist between a child growing up in a poor village in South Africa and another growing up in a wealthy city in Canada." The Human Knowledge Project also builds on the criticism that Google's rise to such extreme prominence is due in part to the failure of the public sector; thus Siva's proposal is a straight argument for a transfer of power back from private to public hands.
A major difference between this idealized project and the internet (or Google) as it exists now is its central focus on existing libraries as knowledge hubs. One of Siva's central concerns about Google, which emerges in the sections on Google Books and Google Scholar, is its pre-emption of librarians as organizers of knowledge. In his other work -- see The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control Is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System -- Siva has sought to articulate a central role for librarians that some in the information studies community have yet to grasp. The Googlization of Everything is in some ways a sequel: a welcome contribution to our debates over the future of access to knowledge, one blending intimate knowledge of what librarians (and their digital corporate counterparts) actually do with a strong sense of what differences between them matter -- why the library remains of crucial importance as a mediating institution in a society awash in information.The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) Overview

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The Plugged-In Manager: Get in Tune with Your People, Technology, and Organization to Thrive Review

The Plugged-In Manager: Get in Tune with Your People, Technology, and Organization to Thrive
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The Plugged-In Manager: Get in Tune with Your People, Technology, and Organization to Thrive ReviewThe Plugged-In Manager is one of the most thought-provoking and *current* management books I've read in years. Terri Griffith's position as professor of management at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley puts her in an ideal location to learn from and connect with some of the top management innovators in the world today.
There is nothing traditional about her worldview. Terri marries some of the core principles that define success in a world shaped by the Internet--transparency, sharing, collaboration, rapid prototyping--with a deliberate and repeatable approach that current and aspiring managers can use to ensure they make effective decisions in a rapidly-changing landscape.
A few particular strengths of this book: 1) it provides a set of well-designed, repeatable practices that will allow managers to quickly and easily begin to put theory into practice 2) it shares detailed, personal stories from managers at some of the most innovative organizations in the world, including Zappos, Nucor, IBM, Cisco, and Intuit 3) It includes a series of scenario-based assessment tools that will allow you to test how well your current approach matches that of the "plugged-in managers" she has researched. Quickly learn how far you've come (or how far you have to go).
If you are looking for ways to be a more effective manager in an Internet-enabled world, spending a few hours reading this book will be an excellent investment of your time.
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Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America Review

Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America
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Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America ReviewIf Variety had a threesome with Wired Magazine and a ColdFusion manual, it would look a lot like this book. It captures a great story of an unlikely internet company (from LA no less) overachieving and does what I think is a great job of walking through the nuances that separate myspace from friendster and a lot of other companies nobody remembers.
I think this would make a fantastic movie as it highlights some over-sized personalities/egos, covers the torn friendships that often happen when startups and $$ are involved and shows how a company can capitalize on a shift in technology (digital pictures/mp3.s + broadband) before most people understand what has happened.Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America Overview

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The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine Review

The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine
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The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine ReviewLunenfeld's 'The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine' is a valuable new addition to new media discourse. It is a rare work, relevant to instructors, students, and the general public alike, that not only presents theory but also suggests practical applications. It challenges us - as readers, writers, students, teachers, and, inevitably, web consumers - to rethink our engagement(s) with the internet and to become producers of meaningful uploads. It also offers a good basic introduction to the 'generations' of digital influentials. Highly recommended to any and all sort of reader.The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine Overview

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The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature Review

The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature
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The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature ReviewDr. Saad has been a pioneer in bringing evolutionary ideas to the field of business. An overwhelming body of literature has now demonstrated that human decision-making is influenced by adaptively motivated biases we inherited from our ancestors. It follows that those motivated biases will influence how we allocate our scarce economic resources. This has profound implications for consumer behavior, as Geoffrey Miller and others (Jill Sundie at UT, Vlad Griskevicius at Minnesota, and Josh Ackerman at MIT) have been arguing. These researchers have also been providing ample empirical demonstrations of the power of that viewpoint. Gad Saad has been been advancing an evolutionary approach to business for years, sometimes encountering opposition from colleagues in his field (who labor under a set of false Blank Slate assumptions that Saad reviews in the first chapter, along with brief rebuttals).
The consumer goods in Saad's clever title are not chosen randomly, but are matched to what he views as four overriding Darwinian pursuits:
1. Survival: We are here because our ancestors were inclined to eat fatty cooked meats and other calorie-dense foods scorned by all California vegans today. Transported into the present, our ancestors would have lined up at McDonald's for those juicy burgers in his title. In the modern world, Saad notes that the top ten restaurants are McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Starbuck's, Subway, Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Domino's Pizza, and Dunkin' Donuts. That diet does not help us live to 90, but the inclinations that drive those choices probably helped our ancestors survive until reproductive age.
2. Reproduction: As Saad notes, men are overwhelmingly the consumers of pornography, and this sex difference is just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, flashy overpowered sports cars are also overwhelmingly a male purchase, and, Saad argues, mainly used as a sexual signal (and indeed the media from Fox News to the Belfast Telegraph is abuzz this week with a series of studies by Jill Sundie and colleagues that demonstrates the links between Porsches and mating displays). In Saad's own research, he finds that simply driving an expensive sports car triggers a boost in men's testosterone levels.
3. Kin Selection: Saad notes that many of our purchases are made for direct kin. This month, I've shelled out money for Legos, art supplies, summer recreational programs, as well as a number of special foods aimed to please my seven-year-old son. I just got back from lunch with him, his older brother, and my two grandchildren, and to test your knowledge of marketing behavior and inclusive fitness, guess who paid?
4. Reciprocity: We not only buy gifts and lunches for our kin, we buy gifts for friends, pick up the tab at the restaurant when we're with close friends, and so on. We do so not because we're economically "irrational," but because it feels good to make our close associates feel good. Indeed, gift-giving is linked not only to friends and kin, it is used to woo mates and to maintain relationships with them (think Valentine's day and anniversary presents). I enjoy Saad's abundant use of statistics to bolster the points. He informs us that fully 10 percent of retail purchases in North America are for gifts, which boils down to $1,215 per person, which starts to add up after a while (to a whopping $253 billion per year in the economy, in fact).
One could quibble with Saad's list of motivational forces, but I will instead simply agree with something that David Buss says in the foreward to the Consuming Instinct: This is a book that should be required reading at business schools. Besides a broad-ranging overview of research on marketing, psychology, economics, anthropology, and biology, Saad peppers the book with lots of take-home messages for consumers, policy-makers, and business people (this is an appealing feature of books aimed at the business crowd -- a la Heath and Heath's Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and Goldstein, Martin, and Cialdini's Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive- practical bottom-line suggestions of how the science can be used).
If you are either a professional businessperson or simply a consumer, I would challenge you read this book and Geoffrey Miller's Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior -- and not come away thinking very differently about people's motives for buying the many, many, things they buy.
Doug Kenrick is author of Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life: A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution, Cognition, and Complexity are Revolutionizing our View of Human NatureThe Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature Overview

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The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends On Productive Friction And Dynamic Specialization Review

The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends On Productive Friction And Dynamic Specialization
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The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends On Productive Friction And Dynamic Specialization ReviewIf you feel that you miss (...), Enron and the other excesses of the the late 90's, please buy this book. Otherwise, don't.
Hagel and Brown are two well pedigreed authors, and they attempt to explain their view on what is the next frontier in corporate strategy. The answer is that value of the firm lies not inside the firm but at its edge. The edge is a broad metaphor for geography (India, China and Brazil), maturity (old econ and new economy), physical edge (inside the firm as well the partners outside).
The key insights from this book are
-Two types of forces have converged to squeeze margins -Informational technology, and Public policy shifts. Try telling this to the 500,000 people who have lost their jobs in the valley.
-Three key elements of the new model for business strategy are
-A. Reconveive sources of strategic advantages by accelerated capability building across boundaries. This implies - Dynamic specialization, Connection and Coordination of 3rd parties and Leveraged capability building. Elaborated using the Li & Fung, Hong Kong retailer example.
-B. Master new mechanisms to build advantages - This implies focusing on efficiency as well as effectiveness, process outsourcing and offshoring, loose coupling of extended business processes and production friction
-C. Adopt new approaches for developing strategy
-Given this framework, conduct a diagnostic that inventories the key initiatives for the last 12 months, as well as the proposed initiatives for the next 5 years. At the end of this diagnostic, you should be able to identify what activities you can offshore and outsource and therefore you can dynamically specialize.
-Process networks is predicated on loose coupling of processes and Productive friction. Productive friction can be decomposed into four factors, Performance Metrics, People, Prototypes, and Pattern Recognition.
-Process networks are enabled by performance fabrics and IT is critical in achieving a solid performance fabric. Web services is critical in implementing this new fabric.
Hagel and Brown have transformed a solid Harvard Business Review paper into a 200 page book that does not do sufficient justice to the expended ink. The approach is geared towards policy wonks at think-tanks rather than day-to-day business manager trying to compete in a flattening world. The authors do not provide prescriptive advise that can be implemented easily. Their case examples are shallow and do not reflect the points well. I would have preferred if the authors take their core argument and apply it to a business unit within a Fortune 500 organization and experiment with their strategy before writing this book.
To the busy executive, one less book that is cluttering our target reading lists.
Your searching for practical strategic ideas,
Fred "Grounding" Sanford
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Virtual Teams: People Working Across Boundaries with Technology Review

Virtual Teams: People Working Across Boundaries with Technology
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Virtual Teams: People Working Across Boundaries with Technology ReviewI purchased this book because I was intrigued. In much of the work I do I am a member of "virtual" teams. That is, I often am some distance apart from the people I am working with.
I found the book to be a slow read, with nuggets of information separated by deserts of fluff. The first half of the book is filled with vague ramblings about how the information age has changed the way that teams work and with case studies that illustrate how the forming of virtual teams has helped various companies solve difficult problems.
In the second half, the book begins to pick up. In a chapter entitled "Teaming with People" the authors discuss team dynamics, including essential roles with a team, how teams form and which aspects of team dynamics are especially subject to the stresses of distance communication.
The authors suggest that the beginning and closing phases of most projects are the most stressful on team members and that extra effort be exerted at the beginning phase of the project to bring the core project team members together, even if they are geographically separated. This, say the authors, will help build interpersonal relationships that can hold the team together in times of stress.
There are several optimum team sizes. 3 to 5 is the size of a core team, 5 to 25 the size of a "team family" and 25 to 200 the size of a "team camp". In the authors' opinion, any team larger than 5 people will naturally divide into sub-teams.
The authors also point out the value of rewarding teams. Making teams compete, or making them completely independent of one another has little value for the company. Cooperative goals can encourage and motivate all of the teams, while competition can demoralize them.
Finally, the authors talk about starting up teams and provide a checklist of some elements such as a customer and a management sponsor which are essential to any team's success.
Overall, I found the book to have some good information on forming and maintaining teams, and what to do when those teams are not located in the same physical location. There is some fluff, I feel, and the book could easily be half its current length without sacrificing much.Virtual Teams: People Working Across Boundaries with Technology Overview

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Get Rich Click: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money on the Internet Review

Get Rich Click: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money on the Internet
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Get Rich Click: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money on the Internet ReviewI received an special offer for this book via Clickbank. Book was "free" as long as I'd pay postage. A very good deal, I though.
This is a good book. Not great, but worth checking out. I give credit to the author for covering so many aspects of online business in one book. The problem is, there isn't enough space for everything he wants to cover-- at least in detail. It's kind of like being at a buffet, with a lot of choices, but only being able to take a tiny bite. You get an idea of what is available, but don't walk away totally satisfied.
Luckily, I have been studying online marketing for a while. When I read this stuff, I got what he was saying. If this is your first book about online maketing though, or you're looking to "get rich quick", you may end up frustrated as some of the aspects here will likely be too complicated for you to understand since you'll have to "fill in the blanks" yourself. For a beginner, I think something like Laptop Lifestyle - How to Quit Your Job and Make a Good Living on the Internet (Volume 1 - Quick Start Guide to Making Money Online) is a better option, since it moves a little slower and gives step-by-step lists of what you can do to either sell your own products online or make money using affiliate programs.
The best part about this book is that it gives detailed case studies of successful businesses and how they are making money online. There are a lot of ways to make money online and this will get you thinking about how you can find something that works for you.
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Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities Review

Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities
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Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities ReviewI suppose I'm the pragmatist in the group, who mostly enjoys reading when it provides meaningful and measurable results to what I do in my life and work. Doug Hubbard consistently provides practical science in everything he writes; and, in "Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities" he helps me stay ahead of the incoming wave far enough to make the difference.
Doug Hubbard has continued where he has left off with his other works, specifically "How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business", and has proven the information needed to make the critical, fast-paced, informed descisions for today is available online and can be quickly interpreted. For folks like me, he walks through the process of breaking down the cultural and conceptual obstacles that stands in the way and gives step-by-step advice on how to implement the Pulse as part of a Decision-Making process. His other best-selling books are 5 stars (user-reviewed!) in difficult and critical business categories; Pulse will join that elite group.
I purchased the Kindle version for my iPad so that I could bookmark, highlight and have it close by as a reference tool. As a Searchologist, I recommend it highly.
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Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford Law Books) Review

Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford Law Books)
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Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford Law Books) ReviewAn amazingly smart book, written with clarity and verve. It's fantastic to see someone writing in the area who so deeply understands the technology, and understands the normative issues it implicates.Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford Law Books) Overview

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Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World Review

Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World
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Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World ReviewI had high expectations for this book based on Tapscott's prior work, the fact that this is based on a multi million-dollar study, and that Net Generation is coming into the workforce. I did not think that my expectations were too high, but I may be wrong, as Grown Up Digital did not deliver for me. It is long on description and short on prescription.
It's a good book, but not one that shapes your thinking like Tapscott's Wikinomics book, nor does it break significant new ground relative to all the other books covering this subject. I put this book down several times for weeks, to read other books, so it is more of a reference than a must read.
I would recommend reading Plugged In by Tamara Erickson as I think it's a better business book, one that is more focused and more valuable to readers than Grown Up Digital. I reviewed that book as well and found some issues, but it provides a more succinct, actionable and insightful focus - which were things that I had hoped for here.

Strengths:
The book is comprehensive in its description and treatment of the Net Generation and describing this generation as a group with its own values and behaviors that will have in impact on society.
The book looks at the Net Generation from different perspectives in terms of their impact on the workplace, society, education, etc.
The book provides some brief caricatures of the net generation so they are able to speak in their own words what is going on.
Challenges:
The primary challenge is the books single dimensional view of the net generation in terms of their adoption and use of technology. It does not take into account that this group grew up under a period of relative social, political and economic stability. Nor does it consider the future of being anything but a straight-line progression of the world in 2006. The economic conditions will be definitional to this generation, but unending growth and prosperity was an assumption beneath this book.
The book treats this generation as a single block; they are all well educated, western leaning, capitalism supporting, environmentally conscious individuals. Such stereotyping does not take into account the fact that any generation is made up of diverse people, with different backgrounds, needs and ambitions. I had hoped that the breadth of Tapscotts research would have done more than paint every net generation person the same.
The book repeats itself using the same assertions as answers for the different chapters. The fact that the net generation wants choice, customization, freedom and the like are all true, but Tapscott uses choice as the answer for every problem ranging from the workplace to society. That broad brush is too simplistic.
The book fawns over the net generation believing that they can do no wrong. This is a critical challenge in the book, as Tapscott does not seem able to look at this generation from an unbiased perspective. You see this in Tapscotts' response to people who have been critical of this generation; he basically dismisses these comments or explains them away. He labels people who have a less than rosey view as nGenerationphobic -- this labeling is a bad sign not found in his other work. Tapscott has personalized the 'do no wrong" in this generation throughout the book by referring to his children as the epitome of this generation and all that it can do. That personalization limits his objectivity and colors the value of the insights.
Tapscott frequently refers to his project being `definitive on this generation' however he does not show much if any of the data from this multi-million dollar study. He does quote data from other people's studies to the degree that it supports his argument. It would have been nice to see some of the data that is so definitive.
The whole issue of the Net Generation has been the focus of Don Tapscott's work for most of his career. I was hoping for more in this book, the result of a multi-million dollar study that seeks to be definitional about this generation. I have great hopes for the Net Generation, as do we all. This book is helpful in understanding that generation, but not powerful enough to define a generation that holds the future in their hands.Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World Overview

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Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers Review

Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers
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Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers ReviewI found "Blogging Heroes" to be a really inspirational book that introduces the reader to many of the pioneers of blogging. As someone who is not a hard-core technical person, it was refreshing to learn the variety of blogs and get a glimpse into their world from the inside. You will probably recognize several of the blogs and enjoy finding out their origins and what motivates the people that breath life into them.
Some of the blogs profiled started as magazines first; others were born online. Some are run professionally by trained journalists; others are run as hobbies during spare time. All of the profiles, though, were interesting. I often found myself at the end of each chapter thinking, "That is so cool. What that person did!"
As you read the book, you'll easily notice patterns in the advice, motivations and other factors that were keys to these bloggers' success. By the end of the book, you'll have a very concise list of what to do if you want to get started blogging (or improve your current blog).
Michael Banks style is great. "Blogging Heroes" is very easy to read with each of the 30 chapters devoted to one interview. I read the book one or two chapters each night before bed. It was perfect for that kind of reading- chapters are under 10 pages long; so, you can always finish one in about 10 minutes.
I recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn more about the world of blogging from a personal level.Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers Overview

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Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age Review

Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age
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Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age ReviewIn this beautifully written overview of the socio-political dynamics of networks, Terranova describes the shift from representation to modulation (in both images and ideas, a technic that foregrounds the communicator's agenda by replacing positions with explicit expressions of vectors for change), and the accompanying shift away from identity politics - replacing the difference/position couple with mutation/movement in open systems. She explores the "hydrodynamic" potential of the internet to channel images and meanings through a segmented and capillary system of communication, in which the spectators no longer form an amorphous mass, but operate instead in a fractal ecology of social niches and microniches. She addresses the active and persistent engagement of the networked audience-participants in a chapter about the abundance of free (uncompelled, and unwaged) labor on which most successful internet projects depend, and contrasts web-community volunteerism with the level of audience engagement demanded by ordinary (and now, "reality") television shows. Finally, she looks at the potential of cellular automata models of "soft control" and their application to the upstream battle against entropy and heat-death on the internet.Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age Overview

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Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World Review

Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World
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Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World ReviewUsing the power of each of us to solve problems that challenge all of us is the central premise of Macrowikinomics. Tapscott has always been good at spotting, shaping and branding trends and this book is no exception. However, this book repeats and restates earlier ideas rather then moving forward to the next logical question of how we do this.
I am sorry to provide a less than enthusiastic review, as I am sure others will find this book revolutionary. However, I am reviewing the book as someone who wants to learn how to make the changes that Tapscott and Williams advocate in my company and industry.
The authors do cover different industries and mention emerging companies giving the impression that the book breaks new ground. However, readers familiar with Tapscott's other works will find that this book repeats and restates Wikinomics more than it covers new ground. It is clear that Tapscott and Williams are looking at this issue from the macro economic rather than business perspective. Is there microwikinomics in the wings?
The book's structure reinforces this observation as it starts by revisiting the basics of the Wikinomics and the five principles of networked intelligence: Collaboration, Openess, Sharing, Integrity and Interdependence. The authors next concentrate on discussing the complex challenges and industries under threat. These include: Green energy, Transportation, Education, Health Care, Media and Government.
The middle section repeats the same pattern of describing their issue, the inability of modern approaches to address the issue and examples of companies using wikinomics to address the issue which that authors report are too early to be reshaping the world we live in.
The last part of the book concentrates on the challenges posed by wikinomics. In my opinion these last two chapters are the more valuable parts of the book, particularly for someone who has already read Wikinomics. But these chapters, like the rest of the book, raises more issues than it resolves.
Recommendations
If you are a wikinomics fan, then you will probably buy the book no matter what anyone says. As a reader familiar with Wikinomics I found more examples but little in the ways of new ideas or applications. The examples are interesting but they lack specifics of how you apply wikinomic principles.
This is a four star book, if you are new to Wikinomics. Macrowikinomics has more examples of than the original book. I would suggest reading Chapters 1-4, then the chapters related to your industry and finish with chapters 18 and 19. This should make the book about 150 - 200 pages which is an appropriate length.
This is a three star book for those who enjoyed Wikinomics and wanted to learn more about how leaders are applying these ideas rather than where the ideas could be applied. I had hoped for more than an expanded restatement of the earlier book.
Strengths
Comprehensive in tackling a diverse set of global issues and industries. The breadth of Tapscott and William's discussion illustrates the broad ability of social media and mass collaboration to change the way the world works.
Company specific examples are interesting and they do illustrate that people are applying these ideas in each of these areas, but the examples are general marketing level descriptions rather than providing actionable advice.
The beginning and the end of the book are quite clear and provide a good overview of the ideas in the book. These include chapters 2, 4, 18 and 19.Challenges
The authors have had more than three years since the introduction of Wikinomics to understand how these forces work in companies. Unfortunately there is little of this understanding in the book. It does not discuss how to address significant issues such as assigning responsibility, accountability, management, measurement and rewards. These are issues that people running companies need to face and ones that people studying rather than living the problem can overlook.
The authors are at times strident in their dismissal of current governments, companies, industries and individuals. Throughout the book the authors are clear that they believe that believe that wikinomics is the only way to solve these issues. This may be a good way to energize people around social issues, but it does little to help people apply these ideas to evolve from where they are to where they need to be.
Americans appear to be the primary audience for the book. While Tapscott and Williams mention India and China, their intended audience is people in the U.S. This is surprising given the author's calls for a coordinated global response to economic and environmental issues.
The book is long at over 400 pages; in large part because of the middle chapters follow a similar structure, which makes the book seem repetitive and reinforces the impression that the authors believe that the same solution applies to every situation.
The notion of 'rebooting business and the world' is an interesting premise and an inaccurate description of what the authors intend since rebooting is used most often as a way of solving problems by resetting the system to its original configuration. This is not what the authors intend but it's the analogy they have chosen.Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World Overview

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Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society Review

Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society
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Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society ReviewThis book covers a lot of ground in internet theory and the social aspects of it.
Personally I enjoy the flights into sci-fi, but I understand how they could miss the mark for some readers.
The best element of this book is the shear number of references it makes to writers in the field. The bibliography here is a great resource and he explains most content and concepts well enough for you to understand if you want to take it further.Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society Overview

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Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools and Trade Secrets (The AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series) Review

Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools and Trade Secrets (The AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series)
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Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools and Trade Secrets (The AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series) ReviewTed Hart and James Greenfield have led another team of experts in creating a sequel to 2005's Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising Success. Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools & Trade Secrets is not a rehash, but a new effort to provide nonprofits with a clear understanding of the effective tools available and how to integrate them.
This review takes its title from one of the chapters. I'm working for a global nonprofit and can truly say that we operate with "no borders." Our tools are varied and allow us to work across oceans as though we are next-door neighbors. Building an online community for fundraising support, social networking and collaboration, volunteer management and recruitment, web design, multichannel fundraising, e-governance, mobile technology, security, and more, are discussed in depth.
If you're in nonprofit marketing, fundraising, communications, program content development or a webmaster, Internet Management for Nonprofits is for you.Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools and Trade Secrets (The AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series) Overview

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Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising Success Review

Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising Success
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Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising Success ReviewThe book provides a great overview of fundraising, communications and marketing online. Each chapter is a separate essay by an expert in the field. Topics include ePhilanthropy Strategy, Multichannel Marketing, Integrating Online and Offline Databases, Building Online Communities, Reaching & Inspiring Donors Online, Advocacy, Staffing, and ePhilanthropy Regulation and the Law.
The field of ePhilanthropy is evolving and many organizations are seeking answers to implementing online programs. This book offers great perspectives on how nonprofits can take advantage of technology to increase their effectiveness.
(Eve Fisher, Eden Web Consulting, M.S. Technical Communications)Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising Success Overview

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The Word of Mouse: New Age of Networked Media Review

The Word of Mouse: New Age of Networked Media
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The Word of Mouse: New Age of Networked Media ReviewAs more and more devices develop networking capabilities, from computers to games, mobile phones, television and household appliances, the network idea is ever expanded: but how does programming expand with it, to create a flow through the network. Jim Banister is a veteran industry media executive working with big companies such as Disney and Time Warner: his survey analyzes the success stories of internet companies which have become models for networking, outlines the potentials of networked media, and tells businesses how to tap into this potential. Word Of Mouse: The New Age Of Networked Media is a very highly recommended and intriguing survey of evolving programming - and its potentials.
The Word of Mouse: New Age of Networked Media Overview

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Wireless Sensor Networks for Healthcare Applications Review

Wireless Sensor Networks for Healthcare Applications
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Wireless Sensor Networks for Healthcare Applications ReviewThis easy to read book provides a wealth of wireless sensor knowledge that has been gained through years of research and trials from Intel researchers and leading healthcare consortiums. It provided me a brain dump of all the wireless sensor technologies available and the technology and prototypes of sensors in the future. My favorite section is the last chapter that discusses future wireless sensor networks and the "Burnfoot Project" in detail. This technology is Star Trek in the making, where health scanning becomes a wand that passes over you detecting the smallest forces from your body. This section alone, I found worth the cost of the book as it has amazing applications even outside of healthcare industry in the way sensors realize and measure the world. The authors also describe in detail three healthcare case studies that took me through the product realization of wireless sensors from ethnographic modeling to clinical problem statement to validation and deployment. I recommend this for anyone wanting to understand how to take a health care problem and solve it with innovative wireless sensor networks.Wireless Sensor Networks for Healthcare Applications Overview

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